Here is a short excerpt from a story taken from the Lancaster (PA) News about Grace Brethren International’s orphan ministry in Central African Republic. To read the entire story, click on http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/214388
A recipe for profit sharing
African orphans to benefit from jars sold on the Internet
By DENNIS LARISON, Business editor
Sunday News
LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa – At first glance, it looks like a formula to increase sales by tapping into people’s charitable impulses.
Buy a jar of jam and a dollar goes to support an orphan in Africa.
Sales should soar.
Talk awhile with Keith Walker and Kurt Yordy — who early this month launched the Web site www.FeedYourFamilyFeedTheWorld.com — and the picture changes.
It’s common for companies to have a philanthropic component, they say. What sets their company, Higher Call Inc., apart is that it makes philanthropy its core value rather than tacking it on as a secondary goal.
That’s not to say there’s no profit motive involved.
“We’re not tax exempt,” Walker said. “We want a viable business. There’s no question about that.”
Higher Call’s main business the past few years has been distribution of the Amish Family Recipes brand of products. It’s the same brand that’s offered on the new Web site.
Photos of the sponsored children at Project Hope & Charité, a program of Grace Brethren International Missions, appear with the products along with a counter that shows how much money has been collected.
A jar of jam costs $3.75. A dollar of that will support a child for a day, or about 4,900 jars of jam to see a 5-year-old through to adulthood.
Walker said Higher Call intends to keep collecting money for a particular child until the entire $4,900 is in before shifting to another child.
Project Hope & Charité
Higher Call is the first company to direct a portion of its sales to help Project Hope & Charité’s orphan center, Barb Wooler, one of the program’s founders said by telephone.
“We’re a new program, in our third year,” she said. “Most of our giving comes through churches.”
Wooler, who is based at Grace Brethren International Missions in Winona Lake, Ind., has been spending several months each year in Africa.
She was in Lancaster County last week to visit her parents, who live in New Holland, and to give a presentation at Grace Brethren Church of Lititz on the orphan center.